Dear CSMS League Members,

One of the true giants of our league has passed away. We learned last night that Mike Church has passed away.

Mike was long time member who finally had to retire a few years back because his eyesight failed. He was very active in the league for decades and was a real forward thinker that propelled the league to where it is now.

Mike managed a team in the league for years, but is best remembered for our annual September prostate cancer research charity tournament now called the Mike Church Classic. Mike was the initiator of what was first called the ‘Average Age Tournament,’ which later became connected to the prostate charity.

Mike was the first to think of having a league website and was the one who registered the domain known as grandslamslopitch.com on our behalf. He attempted to set up the website on his own, but couldn’t do it due to his eyesight issues.

When he left our league, Mike moved to be near his son in a little village outside of Nelson, BC so any memorial services on his behalf will be held in that area.

Someone who devoted as much time, effort and passion to the league will certainly be deeply missed by those where lucky enough to have known him.

If any additional information comes available, I will of course post it here and in an email to the league.

Gary Paukert
CSMS League Communications

Hi Guys,

Further to my last email, there will be a memorial service for Elsie Popowich, on Friday January 10th at 2:00pm.

The location is:

St Anthony Parrish in Calgary
5340 4th Street SW

In lieu of flowers, please donate to the SPCA in Elsie’s name.

Thanks to Don McKillop for relaying this information.

Regards,

Gary

League members:

We are saddened to hear that Len Popowich’s wife Elsie passed away January 3rd after a long battle with cancer.

Len has been very much involved in our league for around 15 years as leader and teammate. As a league we extend our heartfelt empathy and sadness at the loss of Elsie. Our thoughts, hearts and prayers are with Len today as he faces this terrible loss.

There is no information as yet about funeral services. When that information is available I will send out a separate email to all league members.

Regards,

Gary Paukert
CSMS League Communications

Hey, wake up! It’s 2020.

Yeah, I know, it’s below freezing outside, there’s a foot of snow covering the diamonds and you may be nursing a big headache as you read this this morning. But don’t despair! I bring you good tidings of great joy. Winter WILL end (eventually) AND…..(wait for it!): Registration for the 2020 CSMS league season is now officially OPEN!

Sometime between now and April 8th, gather up some of that Christmas cash you got from weird uncle Frank and head over to http://www.grandslamslopitch.com.

Look for the friendly green button in the upper right-hand corner, and giver ‘er a click. You’re on your way to hours and hours of summertime pleasure. Do it now! Be the first on your block to register for all the highlight-reel fun and drama that will be CSMS league slo-pitch 2020.

If you have any questions, contact your friendly, helpful Registrar or Communications Guru.

See you when the last of the permafrost melts!

Gary Paukert
CSMS Communications

Happy New Year 2020 to all!

This is to let you know that the league history documentation project previously mentioned here is now pretty much complete and visible on the website.

You’ll now notice when you log on to www.grandslamslopitch.com that the red menu bar at the top contains two new drop-down menus, ‘League History ’05-’20,’ and ‘League History ’81-’04.’ You can click on either of these and then choose any year that you are interested in, (see example photo attached).

Choosing any of the years takes you to a simple summary page titled ‘Year in Review’ with a paragraph about significant happenings in the league that year, and one-click links to see:

• Board/Executive membership
• Final regular season standings
• Playoff (medal) results
• Team rosters, managers and coaches for that year
• Game schedules
• Tournament results (Calgary Tournament, Mike Church and Huntsman Games)
• Old newsletters
• Obituaries for teammates and their partners we’ve lost
• Photo albums

The information is not complete throughout the years, and I hope anyone who can ‘fill in the gaps’ will contact me with more information to post. 2009 and 2010 especially are a bit of a ‘black hole’ without much preserved. As we go forward, I will post complete information for 2020 and subsequent years in this same format so that nothing is lost to the sands of time.

I encourage you all to surf through the CSMSL years. I hope it will be a meaningful and enjoyable remembrance for you older guys and for you younger guys, well, it’s a very interesting story of how one man, Wilf Popplestone, gathered a team together in 1981, which led to the stable league of 22 teams and 300 people we now enjoy throughout the year. I know I learned a ton just by putting this all together.

Thanks again to you ‘classic’ members who helped put the scrapbooks together that I’ve transferred to the website for everyone’s enjoyment, and to Mo Lakness who got them into my hands.

Enjoy,

Gary Paukert
CSMSL Communications